At this point, it’s safe to say the report of disco’s death was an exaggeration. The backlash against it, culminating in 1979’s infamous Disco Demolition Night by an attention-hungry rock DJ, only accomplished sending disco back underground, back to all the othered communities to which it originally belonged. From there, its legacy splintered into countless musical styles that would emerge over the next several years, from new wave and post punk to techno and hip-hop. Disco didn’t really die so much as it was given up by the music-industry machine that smothered America in generic white disco fever and caused all this outrage in the first place.

Even during disco’s heyday, when its shiniest, most formulaic tracks were being pushed on the masses, there was a ton of weird, worthy stuff happening beyond the mainstream. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Sources: The P&P Records Soul & Disco Anthology, a 2015 compilation of tracks from P&P Records, a Harlem-based label whose in-house style and collection of rare, killer cuts has made it a cult favorite. These are songs recorded in the back half of the ’70s and released across a seemingly endless family of ethereal sub-labels. (The same label, Harmless Records, also has a comp dedicated to P&P’s equally interesting ’80s output, which focused more on funk and hip-hop.) P&P’s most pivotal figure, the legendary dance-music producer Patrick Adams, dubbed its sound “underground disco.” The songs were recorded fast, cheap, and dirty, and that’s exactly what sets them apart. They lack that overproduced sheen and merciless four-on-the-floor beat of so much mainstream disco, more often relying on heavy funk percussion or Adams’ buzzing MiniMoog. In the end, they’re left sounding grittier—more real, more soulful, more timeless.